Feb 13, 2012 - The upstart India-based Super Fight League promotion announced Monday a three-year deal with YouTube, kicking off with its inaugural March 11 event in Mumbai headlined by a super heavyweight bout between James Thompson and Bob Sapp.
SFL, which is calling itself India's first professionally organized MMA league, said it will share with Google revenues from sponsorships and advertising on the SFL YouTube channel.
The promotion was founded late 2011 by IPL (cricket) investor Raj Kundra and Bollywood acting star Sanjay Dutt. Controversial former MMA agent Ken Pavia has been tapped as CEO.
The decision to pit Thompson and Sapp in the main event will surely attract negative attention. Sapp, who lost over the weekend to Rolles Gracie, has lost eight of his last 10 MMA fights in the first round. Meanwhile, Thompson has lost 12 of his last 17.
Additional bouts are to be announced.
7 comments
Comments
gotta start with some fight i guess.
by MaluNewYorker on Feb 13, 2012 2:51 PM EST reply actions
Not to disrespect Sapp but...
How does any promotion think they’ll be taken seriously by having Sapp headline a card?
They’d be better served just doing an event with all local talent, and getting some of the MMA blogs interested in it. Now that I think about it, putting Sapp on the card did get the blogs interested so maybe they’re doing it right.
by Tacoknight on Feb 13, 2012 3:33 PM EST reply actions
This sport doesn't exist in India
I think they’re doing what’s right for the Indian market. In India, there are no training camps, no NCAA athletes, no TMA; the biggest sport in India is cricket. This is MMA from the very beginning: a novelty attraction for an exclusive audience of wealthy thrillseekers. Seeing a huge white guy and a huge black guy walk around in public and in the media with the prospect of them fighting each other is the best way to build interest and get attention. Like it or not, an entertainment angle is their best chance right now—convince people that what they see in the movies is going to happen for real. That’s why the top-end of this event consists of lots of celebrity appearances and performances by pop-stars.
by magnetic on Feb 13, 2012 5:05 PM EST up reply actions
You are right
I live in India and its true, the sport doesn’t exist. It’s all cricket here. It drives me crazy. If you look at the cricketers here, they’re all overweight, overpaid, under trained slobs. You can’t even call them sportsmen (although i don’t consider cricket a sport). MMA will never get big in India because of the mindset. You wouldn’t believe it. It’s absolute chaos here, people are more worried about where their next meal is coming from rather than a Bob Sapp fight. The guys who are promoting SFL are a bunch of silly fools looking to make some cash out of Bollywood concerts during the fights. Do you know what the tagline for SFL is? its “Come for the concert and stay for the fights.” Seriously. i could go on and on about how screwed up it is in India but i don’t think there’s enough space on the internet for that.
by Andrew Lu on Feb 14, 2012 1:39 AM EST up reply actions
that’s a gross generalization of all cricket players. There are some excellent athletes among them.
And like the above commenter said, they’re doing what will make them money in India.
ONE FC NEVER DIE
by Robust23 on Feb 14, 2012 2:10 PM EST up reply actions
genius move
i dont know why other fight promotions havent struck a deal with youtube already, with youtube having something like hundreds of millions of viewers to begin with. could of gotten a better match up though.
by huckabuck878 on Feb 13, 2012 5:12 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Raj Kundra was also one of the main players/investors in the Indian Premier Cricket league which was wildly popular in countries playing cricket. They followed they same youtube model and were very successful with it. So he’s repeating the same here.
ONE FC NEVER DIE
by Robust23 on Feb 14, 2012 2:07 PM EST reply actions
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